President Obama Gives Speech at a GM Auto Plant

Yesterday, July 30th, 2010, President Obama stopped at the Hamtramck General Motors auto plant in Hamtramck, Michigan to talk about jobs, the economy, and most notably the auto industry and the importance in investing in new auto technologies. It has been a little over a year since the auto industry was given a bailout by the government, and more importantly the U.S. taxpayers. Among those companies bailed out were General Motors and Chrysler.
The President gave a ten minute speech in which he explained the reasoning and validation for the auto bailout, in which he stated, "the auto industry had lost hundreds of thousands of jobs. Sales had gone down by 40 percent. And two of the Big Three, GM and Chrysler, were on the brink of a liquidation bankruptcy, which means they would have been wiped out. And if GM and Chrysler were wiped out, then suppliers would be wiped out and dealerships would have been wiped out, and communities would have been even more devastated. It’s estimated that we would have lost another million jobs if we had not stepped in."
He also announced the growth of GM, Ford, and Chrysler. "And a year later, GM and Chrysler, along with Ford, are all posting a profit. The U.S. auto industry has hired 55,000 workers, the most job growth in a decade. And not only that, but you’re producing the cars of the future right here at this plant, producing cars that are going to reduce our dependence on foreign oil." To this, the crowd of GM auto workers let out a loud cheer.
Before his speech President Obama took a tour of the GM plant, as well as a tour of the new Chevy Volt, which is due to make it's debut later this year. He also spoke of the need for energy independence to drive the clean energy economy.

President Obama On the Disclose Act

On July 26, 2010, President Obama took the podium in the Rose Garden at the White House to make a strong case for an end to the "Citizens United" Supreme Court decision, that gave corporations and businesses the right to donate unlimited funds to certain candidates of their choosing during an election. "They can buy millions of dollars worth of TV ads –- and worst of all, they don’t even have to reveal who’s actually paying for the ads." Since day one, President Obama has opposed this sort of measure because of the overreaching ramifications it would have over the democratic process, turning it into nothing short of a corporate buyout of our election process. "Now, imagine the power this will give special interests over politicians. Corporate lobbyists will be able to tell members of Congress if they don’t vote the right way, they will face an onslaught of negative ads in their next campaign."
The House of Representatives has passed the Disclose Act with bipartisan support, but in typical fashion, it has been stalled by the Republicans in the Senate. The Disclose Act would require advertising from corporations regarding that of a political nature to provide exactly who is funding the advertisements. President Obama explained further, "So when special interests take to the airwaves, whoever is running and funding the ad would have to appear in the advertisement and claim responsibility for it -– like a company’s CEO or the organization’s biggest contributor."
The President has shown firm and unwavering support for Campaign Finance Reform, which would put the power back in the hands of the individual in the United States to decide who will be elected and who won't.